Letter from the Editor: Welcome home – and what a great home it is!

Welcome to your home Panthers! Welcome to your brand new stadium, to your campus, or in other cases, welcome back to the places you’re so familiar with. I can’t hide from you how I excited I am about this upcoming year!

I, along with my new team, am excited to bring you this community’s news each week. Alpharetta, Newton, Decatur, Dunwoody, Clarkston, Atlanta — we’ll be covering all corners of the Georgia State family. I’m excited because we’re embarking on a brand new adventure, in one of the best places to be, with a handful of fresh ideas we’ll present you with. Why should you be as excited as I am?

You now get to call Atlanta your home for however long your Georgia State experience will be. And Atlanta, I promise you, with its unique diversity of people, groups, beliefs, ideas, mindsets, will expose you to opinions that will put your mind to work. And that’s how you will grow! This is one of the most important times to stand true to your beliefs, and Georgia State will allow you to test your beliefs, by throwing you into a pool of polar opposite ones.

You should be excited, as I am, for this most refeshing experience. Living in Atlanta, I got to be part of groups and events I never before had interacted with. I listened to undocumented students protest for an education, I saw word battles on campus between religious groups and students, I listened to concerns of the Muslim community when our new president came into office, and I reported on Black Lives Matter protests around Atlanta. I’ve seen more in the past two years than most people care to discover in a lifetime.

You will have this opportunity too. Be proud and be humbled that your home is a spark of loud voices, strong characters and relentless leaders, because those are the kinds of people we need right now. Don’t be afraid to get involved in the action — discover who you are, what you like and stand for, and give people of all backgrounds a chance to give you some insight.

You will not regret the diversity, the action, and the eye-opening experiences that are offered at the heart of Georgia State. Explore our streets, and pick up a copy of The Signal each Tuesday to read more about your community. We’ll be here all year, reminding you of what the place you call home really looks like.

Welcome home, or welcome back! Welcome to what I suspect will be one of the most interesting years we’ve experienced.